A Baloch Fuel Carrier Dies Due to Mine Explosion Laid by the IRGC in Saravan County

The website "Halosh," which publishes news related to Sistan and Baluchestan province, reported that a Baloch fuel carrier died on Sunday evening, October 14, near the zero border point in Saravan County due to stepping on a mine laid by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). According to the report, the name of this fuel carrier was Iqbal Rigi, who was 21 years old. Halosh quoted its sources as saying that Iqbal's body was "shattered due to the mine explosion" in the "Maksukhteh" area of the "Bamposht" district of Saravan, and he died instantly. The website noted that in two separate incidents earlier this year, on June 22 and early March, a Baloch nomadic woman named "Mehrabi Bi Siyahani" and a Baloch teenager who went to graze his livestock in the Patkuki area of Saravan also lost their lives due to stepping on mines laid by the IRGC. The report also indicated that previously, on January 29 of the previous year, an 11-year-old Baloch child lost a leg due to a mine explosion in the border area of Kolgan in Saravan, and four other citizens lost their lives. Fuel carrying and smuggling in border areas are due to lack of jobs, poverty, and underdevelopment, which has taken a very harsh form in a province like Sistan and Baluchestan. However, armed agents of the Islamic Republic, led by the IRGC, have targeted hundreds of Kurdish fuel carriers and traders over the past decades under the pretext of "fighting against smuggling." In many cases, relevant institutions of the Islamic Republic, in response to complaints and follow-ups from the victims' families, instead of holding the perpetrators of these shootings accountable, promote them and transfer them to other regions of Iran. The military forces of the Islamic Republic, including the IRGC, have mined many border nomadic areas in Sistan and Baluchestan and the desert regions between Kerman province under security pretexts, which are places for the migration of livestock owners and grazing their animals and camels. The Mine Ban Treaty (Ottawa Treaty), which was adopted in September 1997 and came into force in March 1999, prohibits the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines and calls for assistance to victims, mine clearance, and destruction of stockpiles. Currently, 164 countries are members of this treaty, but the Islamic Republic of Iran has not yet joined it.